Episode 1 of Bones sends Garrett to pull off a heist in a dockyard, which just happens to be located in a snowed-in section of the Old Quarter that was recently cleared of undead and reoccupied by the living. Much of the place is still abandoned though, and part of town is still in the undead's clutches.

This mission is the first level of a campaign that apparently never got more than off the ground. There was no Episode 2 or as far as I know any other missions by the authors. And Episode 1 does bear the marks of an unfinished story. There are texts that seem to hint at story developments that never come. One of your objectives leads to a twist that leads to a cliffhanger that never resolved.

That said, there's plenty to enjoy about this mission that stands alone. There's a sizeable chunk of city to explore and a number of objectives to pursue, and always more than one way to pursue them. In fact the mission is very good at providing alternate pathways to a given area, whether on street level, above it via ledges, beams and pipes or through windows, and occasionally underground.

Aside from the requisite crypt, only certain sections of the city are still completely ruined and inhabited by the undead. The more populated sections are composed of a mixture of still-abandoned buildings and those into which some brave soul has decided to move. Either way, there's plenty of reason to explore. Guards patrol the streets in large numbers, but for all that it's never terribly difficult to shake them off.

Despite making promises it can't keep, Bones Episode 1 is a very solid mission, well worth your time.

EDIT (half a year from initial review): I replayed this mission and decided to raise my rating a bit. I could name some criticisms, like the number of ways there are to get outside of the playable area. The fact that it just ends is a shame, but even without the intended sequel it's no less complete in itself than any other city mission, and with that in mind I'd have to name it as one of the best. The story doesn't amount to much, but the number of objectives, the freedom you are given to approach them, and the open-ended layout of the map provide a deeply engaging experience and plenty of what they call emergent gameplay.

A fun thing I did in my second playthrough: got the haunts in the abandoned houses to chase me into the city, hid from them, and watched the chaos ensue as the guards attacked them. I tried to do the same with the haunts in the crypt, but it proved too difficult to do without dying.

Also, I completely missed the "necromantic arrows" the first time around. They are arrows that... summon zombies! The map has about a dozen of them that I discovered. I've never seen such a thing in a "normal" FM. Good fun.

It's a very interesting mission because it really, really looks like a lost mission from Calendra's Legacy, using mostly the same texture selection, similar sounds and built very similarly to both A Meeting With Basso and Midnight in Murkbell. I think it's a fantastic mission and it's crazy the author tried to make it under Olddark when you consider the sheer scope of it.

Man I really need to play the Calendra missions, it's a big gap in my Thief experience. As I recall I got stuck somewhere in Calendra's Cistern but I'll have to return to it...

Having played those missions I can totally understand your comparison. This mission is like the theme of the above-ground section of "A Winter's Eve" combined with the more open-ended city layout of "Midnight in Murkbell."

I replayed this mission and decided to raise my rating a bit. I could name some criticisms, like the number of ways there are to get outside of the playable area. The fact that it just ends is a shame, but even without the intended sequel it's no less complete in itself than any other city mission, and with that in mind I'd have to name it as one of the best. The story doesn't amount to much, but the number of objectives, the freedom you are given to approach them, and the open-ended layout of the map provide a deeply engaging experience and plenty of what they call emergent gameplay.